New team to tackle organised crime gangs on Northamptonshire’s borders

Stephanie Weaver

A specialist police team has been created to target organised crime gangs who operate on and around Northamptonshire’s borders.

For the first time, specialist cross-border officers will tackle criminals who operate on the fringes of Northamptonshire in the belief that the rural location will help them evade capture.

We believe the cross border team will achieve some excellent results by targeting these roaming gangs

Supt Andy Cox

The project will see officers from Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Cambridgeshire work together to make sure criminal activity around the borders of Northamptonshire does not slip through the net.

Superintendent Andy Cox from Northamptonshire Police said: “Parts of east Northamptonshire in particular have, for a number of years, suffered from roaming organised crime gangs who do not see our county borders as boundaries, they see them as an area where they believe they can avoid detection by individual police forces.

“Our new cross border team will work to make sure that is not the case by staging regular operations to target known criminals and using the latest technology to track down criminal activity.

“We believe the cross border team will achieve some excellent results by targeting these roaming gangs.”

Despite crime rates falling nationally, police intelligence shows that criminals still actively target the border areas around different counties in the belief that these areas will not be policed as actively as large towns and cities.

To help track down such offenders, officers in the new cross border team will have access to automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to allow them to spot known criminals as they drive into Northamptonshire.

They will also be issued with the latest mobile computer technology, meaning they can stay out on the roads for longer and maintain high visibility patrols on the main routes into and out of the county.